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Determine candidates and delete from a set of directories containing aging backups. As a follow up to the release of sayebackup.sh last December, here’s a complimentary tool we’re using at Lanedo. Suppose a number of backup directories have piled up after a while, using sayebackup.sh or any other tool that creates time stamped file names:

Which file should be deleted once the backup device starts to fill up? Sayepurge parses the timestamps from the names of this set of backup directories, computes the time deltas, and determines good deletion candidates so that backups are spaced out over time most evenly. The exact behavior can be tuned by specifying the number of recent files to guard against deletion (-g), the number of historic backups to keep around (-k) and the maximum number of deletions for any given run (-d). In the above set of files, the two backups from 2011-07-07 are only 6h apart, so they make good purging candidates, example:

For day to day use, it makes sense to use both tools combined e.g. via crontab. Here’s a sample command to perform daily backups of /etc/ and then keep 6 directories worth of daily backups stored in a toplevel directory for backups:

Resources

Usage

Usage: sayepurge.sh [options] sources...
OPTIONS:
--inc merge incremental backups
-g <nguarded> recent files to guard (8)
-k <nkeeps> non-recent to keep (8)
-d <maxdelet> maximum number of deletions
-C <dir> backup directory
-o <prefix> output directory name (default: 'bak')
-q, --quiet suppress progress information
--fake only simulate deletions or merges
-L list all backup files with delta times
DESCRIPTION:
Delete candidates from a set of aging backups to spread backups most evenly over time, based on time stamps embedded in directory names. Backups older than <nguarded> are purged, so that only <nkeeps> backups remain. In other words, the number of backups is reduced to <nguarded> + <nkeeps>, where <nguarded> are the most recent backups. The puring logic will always pick the backup with the shortest time distance to other backups. Thus, the number of <nkeeps> remaining backups is most evenly distributed across the total time period within which backups have been created. Purging of incremental backups happens via merging of newly created files into the backups predecessor. Thus merged incrementals may contain newly created files from after the incremental backups creation time, but the function of reverse incremental backups is fully preserved. Merged incrementals use a different file name ending (-xinc).

4 Responses to “Sayepurge.sh – determine deletion of aging backups”

This looks similar to http://www.spinellis.gr/sw/unix/fileprune/ and I wish I’d be be able to use features from both: Parsing dates and deleting whole directoreis from the filename from you with the nice exponential deletion from your tool. Maybe you can get some good ideas from fileprune.

After a hard drive crash (…), I set up a backup system. It’s very primitive: every now and then I make plain copies on two external drives. Now I am facing the space shortage issue, so I have been wondering what to delete. I am not completely satisfied with automatic deletions, because I think that I may delete a file which does not exist in the surrounding snapshots:
snap-1 : file in draft state
snap-2 : file in its final state
snap-3 : file is deleted.
If I delete snap-2, I loose that file that interests me.

So I have been considering two types of snapshots, the automatic regular ones, and the ones I trigger for a specific reason. To make the parallel with a versioning system, I see automatic backups as (micro) commits on my working copy, and triggered backups as commit/merge to the main branch. A good reason to trigger a backup is a clear milestone of a project. Then automatic snapshots are mostly only useful between the last triggered snapshot and now. Basically all other automatic ones could be deleted if space is lacking. Ideally the triggered snapshot could have a label (as a commit message) to remind the general state of the snapshot, and how it differs from the previous triggered one.

Does it make sense?
This is just my thoughts as they are now, as I am facing this space shortage problem recently, which I may simply solve (postpone) by buying a bigger drive…

Hey Luc. These days, given HDD sizes and prices, just buying a bigger drive is generally the fastest and (in terms of time) often also cheapest option 😉
That said, we’re using sayepurge.sh so it keeps around a set of recent copies untouched, which means for your case:
snap-1 : file in draft state
snap-2 : file in its final state
snap-3 : file is hard-linked.
snap-4 : file is hard-linked.
snap-5 : file is hard-linked.
snap-6 : file is accidentally deleted.

The last 3 to 4 backups are usually kept, which means if 1/2/3 get deleted, the latest version usually is still recoverable. The deletion would have to go by unnoticed for a long time, in order for the file to actually vanish from backups as well.

If it comes to projects however, I agree you need full version control for that with fine grained commits. No backup scheme can serve as a substitute here. Daily backups are good for making sure the version control system itself isn’t lost though. 😉